


lo, how a rose e'er blooming

by empressearwig



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/M, Holidays, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/pseuds/empressearwig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing moment from Anne of Windy Poplars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lo, how a rose e'er blooming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/gifts).



 

> "...until day smiled back at night over white-bosomed hills and they came back to Green Gables in triumph...to meet a tall young man with hazel eyes and the beginnings of a mustache which made him look so much older and maturer that Anne had one awful moment of wondering if it were really Gilbert or a stranger." ~ _Anne of Windy Poplars_

  
It was a merry party that tumbled through the doors of Green Gables that night. Davy's arms were laden with the multitude of green fir boughs that Anne had insisted were precisely the right thing to adorn the mantel of the fireplace in the parlor. She, Dora, and Katherine were empty handed but pink-cheeked from the cold and she was just repeating her promise of hot cider as compensation for Davy's labours when Anne noticed they were not alone in the parlor after all.

A young man rose from the stiff-backed davenport and said, "Anne."

Anne's heart raced, her mind whirled. It was Gilbert, but it wasn't at all. That mustache, the new leanness of his cheeks. Didn't his landlady in Kingsport feed him? Didn't the medical school give him time to eat? His voice, oh, she would know that anywhere and it was the same, but could it be? Was it really him?

He smiled at her. "Have I rendered you speechless at last?" he teased, in his utterly Gilbert of ways. "I was sure that was the most impossible of all impossible things."

It _was_ him.

She was across the room and in his arms before she was even aware she was moving. "Dearest," she said, peppering his face with kisses. "Oh, I've missed you terribly."

His strong arms circled her waist, clasping her against him. "I had hoped," he said, his voice utterly droll. "But it's nice to know nonetheless."

"Oh," she gasped, her heading spinning back to the doors. "Katherine, the twins…"

"Are gone," Gilbert said. He turned her back to face him. "And will hopefully stay there."

"That's terrible," Anne said. She did her best to look stern, but failed utterly in the attempt. "Katherine is my guest."

"The twins will see that she's well-entertained," Gilbert said firmly. "No one raised by Marilla Cuthbert could do less."

"But--" Anne tried again.

Gilbert pressed his lips to hers, cutting off her words in a much too agreeable fashion. She couldn't think of all the reasons that they shouldn't when Gilbert was kissing her, she couldn't think at all. It simply wasn't fair and yet, in her heart of hearts, Anne didn't mind at all. Her arms went around his neck and she kissed him back, eager to let him know that she had missed him as much as he seemed to have missed her over the past three months.

Oh, it was going to be the very best of Christmases.

*

Some minutes (or was it hours?) later, they were sitting together on the davenport. It was the same dignified Green Gables parlor that Anne had always feared to dust, lest she break something, but it was a quite different room with Gilbert there holding her hand. He toyed with the delicate circlet of pearls that he had placed on her finger almost two years ago, and now, it would be a little less than two years before he would give her a band of gold to be its steadfast companion. Anne was not in the habit of wishing away the passage of time, because she knew full well the surprises life could bring, but oh, she wished.

"Where are you wandering, Anne-o-mine?" asked Gilbert.

She tipped her face back and smiled up at him. "Somewhere near and yet too far."

He squeezed her hand. "I'd like to go there too. Someday."

"Little Elizabeth would say that is our Tomorrow," she said.

Gilbert smiled at her. "To Tomorrow, then."

"To Tomorrow," Anne agreed. She rested her head against his chest once more. "What do you think of Katherine?"

A kiss brushed across her forehead. "I can't say that I formed much of an impression before she disappeared with the twins. My attentions were rather focused elsewhere." He laughed at her disgruntled expression. "She wasn't at all what I would have expected from your first letters from Summerside, however."

"She's not at all what I expected either," Anne admitted. "Oh, I had hopes, to be sure, but she's coming alive, Gilbert. I'm so happy for her. No one should ever be forced to live in a shell the way she was. She's so much more. I want to help her become everything she should always have been."

"Then you will," Gilbert said. "Green Gables at Christmas is a magical thing."

"It is," Anne said. She lifted her face towards Gilbert's once more, her eyes shining at him. "Maybe all the more because--"

Gilbert kissed her again, reading correctly the invitation in her eyes. There was magic at Green Gables, to be sure, but Anne was certain that this was a type of magic unlike any other she'd ever known.

Maybe the greatest magic, then, came from having someone to share it with. Of being together with the one you loved and who loved you in return and simply _being_. And if it was, then Anne hoped for many more magic-filled days to come.

*

It was too soon before Gilbert had to take his leave. Anne walked him to the door and watched him wrap himself in his abandoned coat, hat, and scarf. She reached up to adjust the knot in his scarf, so that his throat was better protected from the cold.

"You're sure you can't stay for supper?" she asked, just once more. The question was selfish, for of course his parents had a right to his time as much as she did. But oh, it was agony to have him go so soon, despite knowing that they had many more hours and nights before them on this visit.

Gilbert put his finger to her chin and lifted it. "I will be back tomorrow," he promised. "Perhaps we can take our own walk in the Haunted Wood or down Lover's Lane."

"And you'll meet Katherine properly," Anne said.

"Of course," Gilbert said. "I'm looking forward to meeting another of your conquests. No one stands a chance against you, Anne Shirley. I should know."

He kissed her goodnight then, and however much she might have wanted to, she did not cling. He opened the door and she held it open, against the cold December wind.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you, too," she answered. "Good night."

He lifted a hand in answer and disappeared into the night. Anne watched him go and then shut the door behind him.

Gilbert might be gone, but there were still Katherine and the twins and the two dearest old ladies in the world. Never would she forget how grateful she was to have each and every one of them, no matter how prickly some of them might have been on earliest acquaintance. And then, in the morning--

Anne shivered with joy.


End file.
